🦋 Animal Anecdotes
Going to the zoo in January has two downsides: it is very cold, and many of the animals, the ones which are used to warm climates, are not out where you can see them. Upsides: there are few people there, so you've got the place pretty much to yourself; the animals which are used to cold climates include some that are fun to watch; and there are indoor displays like the reptile house, where you can warm up between walking around outside. We took Sylvia and her friend Sasha to the Bronx Zoo this afternoon and had a great time. For me, primates are the name of the game at zoos, the animals I can spend the longest interested time just watching. And the Bronx Zoo has some great primates. We had been walking around for about half an hour and seen some nice stuff -- bison, tigers, snow leopards, red pandas, the many nocturnal species in the House of Darkness... when we got to the Congo Rainforest exhibit. No animals were out in the outdoor part of the exhibit of course; but the indoor part is one of the best zoo displays I have ever seen. First we saw the guenons, small orange monkeys -- one of them spent about half a minute sticking his tongue out at me and Sasha -- then moved on to the living room of the gorillas. The largest female gorilla was sleeping right next to the glass partition, holding her newborn son in her arms. (I think I got a good photo of the two of them.) Behind her, another female was sleeping; after a minute or two a male came over and tapped her on the shoulder. She started up and glared at him but he made nice and cuddled behind her, laid his head on her shoulder, closed his eyes and grinned. She lay there for a minute or two, eyes open, with an irritated expression, then jumped up, picked up the pillow of straw she had been resting on, carried it over a little ways and went back to sleep. The rejected male followed after a minute or two and sat right next to her, carefully not touching her. Sylvia and Sasha sat next to the glass for easily fifteen minutes, narrating everything the apes were doing. More simian fun at the Monkey House, where the largest enclosure is home to about 15 capuchins. Sylvia and Sasha spent another ten minutes or so watching these extremely high-energy monkeys jumping around and playing with each other. Their favorite playthings seem to be empty containers.
posted evening of Monday, January 16th, 2006
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